<i>Imposition of the death penalty on children and pregnant women.</i><i> </i>Submission to the UN Secretary General's report on the question of the death penalty (March 2023)

<p dir="ltr">We argue that the prohibition of the execution of pregnant women and children meets the criteria to be identified as a peremptory norm of general international law (<i>jus cogens)</i>, namely, that: ‘(a) it is a norm of general international law; and (b) it is accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character’. The increasing acceptance and recognition by a very large majority of States that pregnant women and children should not be executed is evidenced by a review of reports from 2004 submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council, General Assembly, and the Economic and Social Council, by which this submission is informed.</p>